Genrefuck.
May 14 – 31, 2025
In partnership with fu-GEN Theatre, PNSNV, and Pencil Kit Productions
Four movement-driven solo pieces. Four audacious artists. Buddies offers space for intimate works to converse and collide in a rolling run of double-bills.
Augusto Bitter’s world premiere Reina envisions the many lives of the anonymous woman depicted on a bag of Harina P.A.N. corn flour, as Julie Phan’s world premiere Never Walk Alone uses pole dance to navigate alienation, projection and inertia within different relational spheres. Gabriel Dharmoo’s Bijuriya code-switches between drag, song, and sound as it navigates its creator’s dual personas, while the Canadian premiere of Goner sees Marikiscrycrycry reimagine Black horror aesthetics for a live context through fearsome and sensuous choreography.
This is art on the edge of gender and genre. Welcome to Genrefuck.
photography by Roya DelSol (Julie Phan) and Fran Chudnoff (Augusto Bitter), treatment by Fran Chudnoff
T’was the night before Christmas and a stripper is phoned by her long-estranged mother looking to reconnect at the start of her work day: we join her as she works the rest of her shift while juggling memories, angst and the wacky scenarios that get stirred up. A solo-live performance piece at the intersections of pole dance and theatre— Never Walk Alone is Julie Phan’s strange attempt at a heartwarming Christmas tale in the only way she knows how.
created by Julie Phan
Julie Phan is a bitch from Toronto. She’s also a Viet-Hoklo multidisciplinary artist, arts manager and stripper. As a nearly two-time college dropout (McGill, NTS), she realized her level of internal Marxism could never match the level of study that was presented to her as her “curriculum.”
In 2023, she was selected by Tarragon Theatre for the RBC Emerging Playwright Award, and by David Yee for the Siminovitch Protégé Prize. She is best known for disappointing her father as well as her work with fu-GEN asian theatre company (never walk alone; fine china; hi, we’re gonna go pick up some drugs).
About Fu-gen
Founded in 2002, fu-GEN Theatre is devoted to providing a home for the Asian Canadian theatre artist, nurturing their voices and producing works of the highest artistic caliber that explore the Asian Canadian experience.
website / instagram / facebook
PNSNV is a creative studio dedicated to the creation of live and digital experiences through multidisciplinary art making. Anchored in performance, our scope of work expands to encompass a broad cultural, creative platform in theatre, film, music spaces and beyond.
Malik Nashad Sharpe (Marikiscrycrycry) is an award-winning choreographer and movement director known for his provocative and formally engaging performance works that address themes of violence, alienation, horror, melancholia, and the horizon. His work has been commissioned and shown across venues, festivals, and contexts in Europe, U.K., and North America. In 2022, he was named a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree for his contribution to dance in Europe. He is currently an Associate Artist at The Place and a guest professor in dance and performance at the Stockholm University of Arts.
Augusto Bitter is a Venezuelan-born, Dora Award-winning actor, writer, facilitator, and producer for stage and screen based in Toronto. Augusto is an alum of the CFC’s CBC Actors Conservatory, BIPOC TV & Film’s Kids TV Writing Intensive, Reelworld’s Emerging 20 program, and has been a resident artist at Canadian Stage, TPM, Aluna, Factory, Soulpepper, Stratford, and the City of Toronto. Augusto’s first play, CHICHO, was adapted into a short film screened at 11 major cities across North and South America. Recent film/TV credits include: Star Trek: Section 31, Coroner, Hotel for the Holidays, EZRA, Hudson & Rex. Food is Augusto’s love language. www.augustobitter.com
About Pencil Kit Productions
Pencil Kit Productions is a Toronto based, ever-evolving theatre and events organism. We’re dedicated to generating new work and building community with an emphasis on alternative, collaborative processes that prioritize the wellbeing and creative fulfillment of artists. We’re interested in all things strange, delicious, novel, magic, experiential, sensorial and imagistic. We know that at its heart, theatre is a social art form. We aim to cultivate spaces where artists and audiences can have fun– from workshops to parties to performances.
Gabriel Dharmoo is a music composer, vocalist and interdisciplinary artist. As a composer, he was awarded the Canada Council for the Arts Jules Léger Prize (2017) and a Conseil Québécois de la Musique Opus Award (2018). His solo show Anthropologies imaginaires has toured internationally and was awarded at the Amsterdam Fringe Festival (2015) and the SummerWorks Performance Festival (2016). Merging music, drag and theatre, his current interdisciplinary project Bijuriya has been presented a dozen times in Canada since 2022 (Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Kitchener). He holds a PhD in research-creation from the Individualized Program of Concordia University.
Bijuriya is part of Buddies’ Queer Voices Canada Series, presented with the support of the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Dates + Times
Show Run
May 14 – 31, 2025
Wed – Sat
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